


baby, it's cold outside

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All of the Feelings, Almost Death!Fic, Angst, Derek has them, Fluff, Gen, Hypothermia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been here for a while, so much so that there is a thin layer of snow covering his already frozen pants, and his eyelids are drooping low. It would be so easy to close his eyes, to not fight it anymore, to sink into a blissful sleep that is surely waiting for him–he can taste it, okay, can taste how nice it would feel; it tastes like snow, and warm leather, and rough hands holding onto his face like a vice. It tastes like frantic, and breathy "<i>Stiles, fuck, Stil–look at me</i>!"'s, like sandalwood and high, panicked howls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby, it's cold outside

**Author's Note:**

> woooow, it's been a long time, hasn't?
> 
> anyway, i got a full time job so i haven't had much time to write. but, i took trope fic prompts on my tumblr, and this was the first one i got, and instead of being in the 200 word range, it ended up being 1k+ so, thus is life, i posted it here. i hope you enjoy it!
> 
> and excuse the truly ridiculous title. i am not feeling particularly creative right now.
> 
> unbeta'd, as per usual.
> 
> note: i do not know anything about hypothermia, and what one goes through when they experience it. i pulled this out of my ass, and i do sincerely apologize.

The thing is, Stiles isn't even sure he's all that cold anymore.

Rationally, he knows that he's freezing, can feel the cold seeping in through the layers of light sweaters he piled on top of each other haphazardly before rushing out the door, can feel the bite of frost slipping slowly through the knitted holes of his gloves, the one's he bought three years ago at a yard-sale because he liked the coffee stain by the thumb of the right hand, but it doesn't feel like he's feeling them, really.

He also knows that out-of-body experiences generally are Not Good Things.

Stiles should be freaking out, now. He should be panicking, because he's out in the woods, alone, and he's really fucking cold, colder than he's ever really been, and the pack doesn't know where he is. They don't even know that he's left the cabin they rented a few weeks ago, but he's frighteningly calm. It should scare him, How Not Scared He Is, because this is Stiles, and admittedly, Stiles has never had a calm moment in his life.

But, he is.

Calm, he means.

 

*

He shouldn't have wandered off without the pack, he knows that, he's not _stupid_ , okay? He just forgot about the forty-five minute lecture Derek sat them through when the snowstorm had first hit (that was at least a few days ago, alright, and it hadn't seemed so important this morning, but now he's lost, and it is  _totally not his fault,_ don't look at him like that). He had stressed the importance of layers and staying together and  _not wandering off alone in the woods during a fucking blizzard, Jesus, Stiles_. He's pretty sure he remembers Derek saying that, anyway. 

That last part could've been him, actually.

Stiles isn't sure anymore.

It's hard to remember things now, and vaguely, Stiles remembers reading that as a symptom of hypothermia.

It's even harder to care about that being a symptom of hypothermia. He has no idea what that says about him, now that he thinks of it, other than there's a truly spectacularly large chance that he probably has it. 

He finds it hard to care about that, too. 

*

Stiles can't move.

Stiles can't move, and he's stuck in a truly uncomfortable position against a tree that he collapsed against a while ago, and the sky is starting to fade to grey, but he's not sure how normal that is. His limbs simultaneously feel feather-light and equivalent to that of Derek Hale's entire muscle mass, so he doesn't bother attempting to move them. Or, well, he attempts to move them, and gets nowhere, so he pretends he doesn't.

(That's somehow even more embarrassing, so he pretends to forget him pretending he doesn't.)

Basically, he sits there for a while, unmoving. 

After a while, he thinks he sees a vulture, but that's probably just a hallucination. 

* 

He's so damn tired.

He is so damn tired, and his limbs are too heavy, and his entire body fucking hurts, so much that he doesn't want to breathe anymore because it feels like he's inhaling entire icicles–and he knows that he's not, but it feels like it, and he's tired of that, too, tired of knowing things that are true but unable to believe in anything other than the opposite. 

 

He's been here for a while, so much so that there is a thin layer of snow covering his already frozen pants, and his eyelids are drooping low. It would be so easy to close his eyes, to not fight it anymore, to sink into a blissful sleep that is surely waiting for him–he can taste it, okay, can taste how nice it would feel; it tastes like snow, and warm leather, and rough hands holding onto his face like a vice. It tastes like frantic, and breathy " _Stiles, fuck, Stil–look at me!_ "'s, like sandalwood and high, panicked howls.

He falls.

*

Stiles doesn't expect to wake up.

For a while, he doesn't.

*

Distantly, Stiles can remember.

He remembers his clothes being gently ripped–how does one  _even_ gently rip, anyway?–off of his body, remembers hands, so many hands touching his neck, running fingers down his navel, gripping his arm soft and firm and so, so very warm. He remembers lukewarm baths and werewolf puppy piles, and soft, unyielding growls whenever Stiles shifted, remembers hissing whispers of conversations he barely caught.

He remembers until he can't, anymore.

*

When Stiles finally opens his eyes, blearily, there's a undistinguishable shape huddled by his bed. It takes him longer than he wants to admit to realize the shape is holding his hand, and that the shape is most definitely none other than Derek Hale.

He doesn't quite know how to process that information, because the last thing he remembers, lucidly, anyway, is that he was pretty sure he was going to die, out alone in the woods, and waking up again had never really been an immediate option. What he  _does_ know, however, is that his mouth tastes like something gross died in it, _thrice_ , and his throat is so dry that even trying to swallow elicts a truly pitiful whine from him.

Derek snaps to attention, then, alert, alpha-red eyes wide in alarm. When his eyes move to Stiles, there are a thousands of emotions that Stiles can catalogue that run across his face in seconds, anger, surprise, indigance, but mostly surprisingly, bone-chilling ( _ha!_ _),_ unmistakeable  _relief_. 

"Stiles?" His voice cracks, and Stiles feels a wave of devastating guilt hit him, hard.

"Hey, buddy," Stiles drawls out, aiming for nonchalance, but ending up in the ballpark of the surely sheepish.

"What the  _hell were you thinking,"_ Derek growls, and yeah, okay, Stiles totally understands where he's coming from, because now that he's, you know, not  _dying_ he can see how what he did was Totally Not Okay, Not Even a Little, but his head is pounding, still, and it's hard to listen to anything when it feels like his spinal cord is trying to drill it's way out of his skull.

"In my defense," Stiles starts, and licks his lips. Even now, Derek's eyes follow the movement, and it makes Stiles' heart skip a beat. "I don't think I was doing much thinking then. Like, at all. I was bored, and you guys were out training or doing that freaky wolfy bonding you do in the woods, and the snow was looking like it was letting up, so, I left."

"Naturally, you left." Derek repeats.

"It made sense at the time!" Stiles protests, and doesn't even need that ridiculous eyebrow raise to know that it's a weak argument.

"We spent  _hours_ looking for you, Stiles," Derek voice breaks,  _again,_ and Stiles really just cannot do this right now. "You left your phone back at the cabin, so we couldn–Danny couldn't trace your GPS, or whatever, and I–we–" Derek breaks off, for a moment, looking completely and utterly lost. Stiles subconsciously squeezes his hand, reassuringly, and it seems to center him into speaking again, "By the time we realized something was wrong, we weren't sure we would find you in time."

"I'm sorry," Stiles says, earnestly, and he is. "I didn't–"

"I know," Derek cuts him off, and then presses an "It's okay," into Stiles' fingers with his own.

It's not exactly an acceptance of his apology, but this is Derek, and for all he has grown leaps and bounds emotionally in the last couple of years, he probably has hit his quota for the day–or the week, or year, or whatever. Stiles stopped keeping track, because it gives him severe headaches; trying to uncover the issues that make up Derek Hale is like trying to uncover the mystery of infiltrating his father's spyware protection on his work computer (slow-going and frustrating, but in the end, completely worth it).

Okay, so maybe he hasn't stopped keeping track, not even in the slightest.

"So," Stiles says, and then grins too brightly at Derek. "Can I get some water, now? Because, I gotta tell you, man, my mouth feels like several cute and furry woodland creatures died in i–hey, does hypothermia make you suddenly susceptible to ravaging Thumper and Bambi? Terrifyingly enough–"

"I don't even want to hear you finish that sentence," Derek sighs, and shoves a water into Stiles' waiting hands, but he's tender about it, making sure he doesn't hurt Stiles' still-sore fingers.

Stiles smiles into the rim of his mug, and Derek hides his own with the duck of his head.

*

Ironically enough, they have their first kiss in the snow.

Stiles isn't so cold this time around.


End file.
